1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical adapter, and particularly to an electrical adapter for joining two electrical devices having different designs and configurations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A computer mainframe and its periphery device are usually electrically connected together. However, the computer mainframe and its periphery devices have different interface standards and each has different numbers electrical contacts therein. Understandably, different interface standards with different electrical contacts cannot mate with each other directly. Many electrical adapters, thereby, are designed to electrically interconnect those different interface standard devices. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,728,163, 5,123,859 and 5,430,618 respectively disclose such an electrical adapter. However, the electrical adapters defined in the prior arts involve such problems as each of the electrical adapters is provided with two different interfaces generally in a planar and right about relationship. The length of the electrical adapter prevents those different interface standard devices from being placed close to each other, thereby making surrounding area of the electrical adapter enlarged and potential impact inevitably increased. Especially when the electrical adapter is adapted for realizing electrically interconnection between a computer mainframe and a cable set, the cable set is susceptible to encounter impact from unexpected exterior sources, thereby stabilization of the electrically interconnection is not assured.
In addition, U.S. Publication Patent No. 2004/0048494 A1 discloses an electrical adapter with a foldable housing. The foldable housing includes a first housing part, a second housing part, and a pivot joint jointing the first and second housing parts and permitting relative rotation between the first and second housing parts about a pivot axis. However, the structure of the electrical adapter is relatively complex and the pivot joint is inclined to fatigue and accordingly the first and second housing parts cannot freely rotate to their normal positions after a period of use.
Hence, an improved electrical adapter is desired to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art.